A PKR leader denied reports by a Malay daily that said his party had agreed to delay tabling of the much-awaited anti-hopping law.
“The headline is wrong. The Pakatan Harapan presidential council has clearly stated that we wanted it to be tabled the soonest.
“In fact, it is one of the key demands set under the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the Government and Opposition,” party communications director Fahmi Fadzil said.
Two days ago, the Government had announced that the tabling of the anti-hopping law may get delayed following objections from several Perikatan Nasional (Perikatan) leaders.
However, the Government mentioned that the constitutional amendment to support the proposed anti-hopping law will take placed come Monday (April 11), as scheduled.
Yesterday, Pakatan’s top leadership has affirmed its commitment to the Government that they would support the constitutional amendment proposal but stressed that the anti-hopping law must follow suit without any more delays.
However, Malay daily Utusan Malaysia reported Fahmi today as saying that Pakatan had accepted the delay in tabling the proposed legislation.
“I understand many MPs are against it. After considering the views of several ministers, Pakatan accepts the decision,” the daily reported Fahmi as saying.
Dismissing the daily’s headline, Fahmi, who is also Lembah Pantai MP, said Pakatan had made it very clear that the coalition were against anymore delays in tabling the Bill.
“Our timeline is clear. The first step is to table a constitutional amendment on Monday. Next comes the tabling of the anti-hopping law the soonest.
“And we didn’t agree to postponing the matter indefinitely,” he stressed.
Amendment is “too wide”
On related matter, fellow PKR MP Wong Chen said that the proposed constitutional amendment to allow for the anti-hopping law to be tabled was in contention as it would grant Putrajaya “too much power”
“The proposed provision was ‘too wide’ in its cope and must be ‘narrowed’ to cover anti-hopping alone,” Free Malaysia Today reported him as saying.
“To be precise, the draft amendment may allow federal laws to supersede the Federal Constitution as the new clause will allow federal laws to be enacted to restrict the membership in a political party of MPs and state assembly members.” – April 9, 2022
